Varie eased the bowstring, breath tight like a caged bird, and glanced toward the sound—the meat-made outer wall held a barely recognizable… human face, pressed in like a fossil in raw flesh.

Barely recognizable, because the face was almost entirely buried; cheekbones and brow stood naked like bleached driftwood, a thin crust of dried muscle stretched over bone, eyes shriveled like old dates, whites stained brown. Neither Mira nor Varie noticed him at first—until the parched masseter clenched like a breaking rope, tearing its own fibers as he forced out a howl.

“Kill… me…”

Both Varie and Mira swallowed, throats cold as winter rivers. A “person” with self-awareness was there—so why was he embedded into this nightmare of an assembly line?

They followed the neck down, and the answer surfaced like oil—two grotesquely swollen lungs kept contracting, pumping air inside the flesh-caterpillar’s body, like a smith’s bellows stoking a furnace. No, not just “like”—he was the bellows.

They hadn’t noticed on entry, but now, staring, they found such “faces” everywhere along the flesh-caterpillar. Each face was wired to some twisted biological component, serving as a step in the assembly line, like cogs smeared with blood.

Most looked blank, deadened as dusk clouds; the less-rotted eyes still rolled, locking onto the two intruders with a stare carved in the same pleading anguish as that voice, pupils dark with storm.

The first face only spoke because he still had lungs, and the throat intact—he was the “voicebox” of this blasphemous machine.

Varie’s fists clenched, anger twitching across her face like lightning over a black sea. Mira lowered her gaze, silence settling like ash, then spoke softly.

“Could it be…”

“…Could it be what?”

Varie ground her teeth, words clipped like broken glass. Mira drifted into thought, then continued, “This place… it reminds me of a facility in the Sarman Empire.”

The horror before them rang a bell—Mira remembered the days she’d been modified in an underground imperial lab, memories rising like smoke.

Back then, she’d watched human-mod experiments firsthand—tendons peeled, skins flensed, misshapen “specimens” stitched back into abominations, a grotesque collage of suffering and craft.

In a sense, she herself was one of them, a patchwork under a cold moon.

Because she’d lived it, Mira felt the kinship between that hell and this one; and deeper, like a knife under the ribs, she understood this place was ten times—no, a hundred thousand times—worse.

Both places showed no reverence for life, carving bodies like wood for fuel, extracting “essence” without a blink. But Toka, that medical madman, did it for research—twisted curiosity, a feral hunger for knowledge. Here, most modifications had no clear reason—neither efficient nor instructive, like cruelty rehearsed for pleasure.

Why? A chill spread up Mira’s spine like frost on stone. From the spectacle, she sensed a kind of “purity,” as if the master of this place had no motive beyond delight—turning victims into hellish jokes for personal amusement, to taste pleasure.

…

“Wait—pleasure…?”

A thought flashed like a knife in Mira’s mind. She remembered the curse bound to her heart—Tessmi’s Lament—an evil sorcery devised by Krus, the Follower of Pleasure.

Before today, she still didn’t know how Toka broke that supposedly lost curse. But now, seeing how this lair mirrored Balad’s underground setup, and recalling Anta’s mention of a “castle of flesh,” threads scattered like mist began to weave together—knotted by the name “Follower of Pleasure Krus.”

Coincidence?

No. Mira felt she was nearing the truth, and she sifted her memories, fishing for more glimmers.

Meanwhile, Varie set down her bow, and walked toward the dreadful faces like stepping into night rain.

Seeing her approach, that tortured person—if such a shape still counted as “human”—twisted into hysteria, rasping the same plea through torn reeds of voice. “Kill… me!”

He yearned for release. Varie’s hands trembled like leaves; she drew a deep breath, and despite the tempest inside, she shed stray thoughts, focusing like a hunter at dawn.

“Just… a moment. It’ll be over soon…”

Her voice shook, a string under wind. She closed her eyes, fingers touching the mangled face; golden motes spread from her fingertips, flowing like fireflies across exposed skull and muscle.

“What are you doing?”

Mira’s attention snapped to Varie’s hands. Varie kept her eyes shut, refusing to answer, continuing the same gentle, deliberate motion like prayer over embers.

Under her touch, the victim’s thrashing eased. Pain stopped twitching like hooked fish; a hint of peace climbed his twisted cheek. Pale gold drifted from his features, merging like morning mist with the light at Varie’s fingers.

She… was freeing him.

Yes. Varie didn’t fully understand it herself, but after the battle against Soul Devourer Sormaidon, when she’d freed enslaved spirits, she’d awakened the Nacha Tribe’s sense—she could feel and guide their souls. That was what she was doing now, like a shepherd in storm.

Mira’s first reaction, once the surprise ebbed, was a sharp frown, a crease like a scar.

“You’re not going to guide them one by—”

“—Of course I am!” Varie snapped, anger ringing like steel. “I can feel it—they’re all cursed by that bastard. If we just destroy the flesh, they’ll… they’ll all vanish! I won’t let that happen!”

Mira’s lips parted, then closed like a shutter. With Varie’s resolve set, she couldn’t ask her to abandon Nacha souls that couldn’t reenter the cycle. She planted herself to guard, ready for a long vigil like a lone peak against wind.

Then the world bucked.

The face that had grown calm suddenly snarled, a contortion like a storm-rent sea. It wasn’t Varie’s fault—even worse, every face on the flesh-caterpillar mirrored the same shift. Joy of release flipped to terror, then to silent scream.

It was as if a vacuum opened deep in the assembly line—a pull rising from nowhere. It didn’t drag matter; it dragged souls. Every face began to gray and dry, desiccated like paper under sun, as translucent essence peeled away. They clawed for purchase, but grasped only smoke.

“No!”

Varie was inches from freeing them. She watched hands reach for her—then rip backward into the void at the line’s end. Her cry broke like glass; body moved before thought, a stag bolting—Mira couldn’t stop her. Varie rushed toward the maw sucking souls, and then…

She slammed into the enemy’s trap.

Not a metaphor—she physically hit it. Varie’s speed was too fierce; when she reached the passage’s end, she couldn’t brake, and crashed straight into the wall, sinking in.

Yes—she sank into it.

This wall differed from the gut-like surroundings; it was an elastic tissue, not a tumor-like wad. Shaped not like a polyp, but like a perfect, colossal heart—a beating mountain of meat.

On impact, Varie met almost no resistance, like a pebble vanishing into a lake’s skin. Mira’s face drained, sword leaving its sheath with white-hot lightning, ready to cleave the heart in one blazing stroke.

Before her blade cut the soft wall, Varie’s voice rose from within, echoing like a bell under water.

“Wait!”

“…Huh?”

For a blink, Mira feared a mimic’s trick using a swallowed voice. But the magic in that cry was unmistakable—the signature of the Lionheart Hero. She halted mid-charge, breath held like a bow.

“Don’t swing! I get that bastard’s plan now!!!”

“…Explain.”

“This is the factory’s core. I can feel every structure inside from here—I know where the potions are really stored!”

She skipped a dozen points, leaving Mira’s eyes full of static. Varie’s urgent voice pressed on, like rain trying to beat the sun. “This place is a volcano. That spired meat-tower is just the vent. Most potions sit deep underground, kept inside by the tower. If I’d shot the tower, the potions would’ve erupted like lava—covering all of Sanda!”

Her tone carried a thread of relief, a bird surviving the hawk—thank the stars she’d trusted Mira earlier. If not, every Nacha in Sanda would’ve been drenched in chaos brew, minds breaking like thin ice.

Outside the heart, Mira’s face stayed grave, steady as granite. No pride, no triumph—only the next question, hard and clean. “Can you do something now?”

“Yeah! I don’t fully know how—but I can connect from here to every corner of the factory. I can feel all our imprisoned kin’s souls! That bastard’s using them to run this place. If I free them all from here, we can kill this thing in the womb—no eruption.”

CLANG!

Hope had just cracked the gloom when a metal-on-maul crash shattered Varie’s words. Then a different woman’s voice floated in, smooth as silk over a knife.

“Welcome, honored guests~ This humble consort… has been awaiting you for quite some time, you know?”